Apple's notebook market share climbs to 17.6 percent

While Apple may be focusing a lot of its attention on the iPhone lately, consumers are clearly still interested in the company’s computer offerings. Data from one market research firm shows
Apple’s notebook
business broke 17 percent while another research firm said Apple has moved into third place among computer makers.

According to NPD, Apple’s U.S. retail notebook market share for June 2007 was 17.6 percent, an increase of 2.2 percentage points over the same period last year when Apple posted a 15.4 percent market share.

As well as the notebooks are doing, Apple’s overall standing among computer makers is up too.

According to data from research firm IDC, Apple’s continued rise in computer sales puts it in third place overall among all computer makers in the U.S. This is the first time since 1996 that Apple finds itself this high on the list of top selling manufacturers.

Dell took the top spot with HP coming in second place of total unit sales. With Apple taking the number three spot, Gateway and Acer round out the top five.

The good news continues for Apple — with increased notebook sales pushing it forward, the company now has an overall market share of 5.9 percent, up 1.1 percentage points from the 4.8 percent it posted this time last year.

In its
most recent financial quarter
Apple sold 1.76 million Macs, a 33-percent rise over what it shipped in the third quarter of 2006 and 2.5 times the industry-wide growth rate published by market-research firm IDC.

Mac sales for the quarter marked a record for the company, topping the previous quarterly high of 1.61 million Macs shipped during the fourth quarter of 2006.

While there was a rise in desktop sales for the quarter — 634,000 units compared to 529,000 for the same period in 2006 — laptop unit sales skyrocketed 42 percent to 1.13 million portables. All told, 64 percent of the Macs sold during the quarter were laptops.

Update:
Clarified Apple's market share was in the U.S. and fixed the language for the percentage increases. 10:20 pm ET